Nobody's children : abuse and neglect, foster drift, and the adoption alternative

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Upwards of three million children are subject to severe forms of abuse or neglect annually in their homes, and more than half a million live in foster or institutional care, with the numbers growing exponentially. Substance abuse is wreaking havoc in home s and in the child-welfare system-80 to 90 percent of the children victimized by abuse and neglect are being raised by parents who use and abuse alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs during pregnancy. Children removed from their homes be cause of maltre atment languish in institutional care, often bouncing back and forth between foster families and their original families, with state agencies reluctant to terminate parental rights and move them on to adoption, however dim the prospects for nurturing at h ome. Nobody's Children is an intense look at child welfare policies on abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption. Elizabeth Bartholet, one of the nation's leading experts on family law, challenges the accepted orthodoxy that treats children as belonging to their kinship and their racial groups and that locks them into inadequate biological and foster homes. She asks us to apply the lessons learned from the battered women's movement as we look at battered children, and to question why family preservation ideology still reigns supreme when children rather than adult women are involved. Bartholet asks us to take seriously the adoption option. She calls on the entire community to take responsibility for its children, to think of the children at risk of abuse and neglect as belonging to all of us, and to ensure that "Nobody's Children" become treasured members of somebody's family.

Kirkus评论

A disturbing look at how the lives of 'America's modern-day orphans' are sacrificed for the often unrealistic goal of keeping troubled families together. Bartholet (Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting, 1993), an expert on family law and an adoptive mother herself, traces the historical, political, and cultural reasons why battered and neglected children are far more likely to spend years in 'foster limbo,' or be sent back to abusive homes, than to be adopted by loving families. The author charges that despite recent legislation that bars race as a factor, everyone from private foundation administrators to judges, lawyers, and bureaucrats continues to be guided by the notion that children should be cared for by relatives, or adopted by families who look like them. Back in 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers denounced transracial adoption as a form of 'racial genocide.' Though 'race-matching policies have gone underground' since then, Bartholet believes they resurface in criteria like 'kinship' and 'cultural competence.' Because other relatives may not be up to the task of parenting, and because there are not enough minority families to adopt all the children who need them, the author asserts that race-matching essentially condemns many youngsters to lasting physical, cognitive, and emotional damage. Whereas wife beaters are treated like criminals, child abusers, often plagued by poverty and substance abuse, tend to be seen as victims themselves. Bartholet expresses sympathy for their plight but demands that social workers stop using precious child-welfare resources to prop up deeply disturbed families. 'What matters,' she insists, 'is that the children get into homes where they can thrive.' She also suggests, somewhat unrealistically, that the state could take a proactive role in reducing child abuse by instituting 'universal visitation' of all families before and after birth. The author makes her case intelligently, fearlessly, and exhaustively. Curiously, since her subject matter is so wrenching, Bartholet's writing lacks emotional power. Nobody's Children ultimately appeals not to the heart, but to the head.

Choice 评论

Nobody's Children is a searing indictment of the American foster care system. Bartholet (Harvard Law School) analyzes the ideology of the social welfare establishment and of the federal laws that have been enacted to support foster care. The core of that ideology, she argues, is the preservation of birth families who are in crisis. Although this may be a laudable goal in theory, in practice it has been a disaster for the children involved. Returning them to their dysfunctional families or extended kin can literally be a death sentence, or at best--after a short abusive stay, typically with a drug-addicted single mother--they return to foster care. Bartholet's primary solution to the problem of the foster care system is that social workers and the legal system must abandon the goal of preserving families of origin and become advocates for adoption. If birth parents take drugs and abuse their children, the state should quickly step in, terminate parental rights, and place the children with adoptive parents. This is a controversial, eye-opening book that should be read by child welfare professionals, as well as anyone concerned with the high number of children in foster care. All libraries. E. W. Carp; Pacific Lutheran University

《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评

The book's jacket calls this an "intense look at child welfare policies on abuse and neglect." Precisely. Bartholet's subject is too weighty for casual reading and cannot be easily digested, but it does not falter in its criticisms of American child welfare policy. Examining legislation from all parts of the United States, Bartholet questions why "family preservation ideology still reigns supreme when children rather than adult women are involved." The reader is left with a multitude of questions and concerns about the way U.S. adoption policy is currently working, questions that are catalysts for invoking the changes that Bartholet espouses. Clear and consistent, this is recommended for public and academic libraries.ÄSheila Devaney, North Carolina State Univ. Libs., Raleigh (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Introduction	p. 1
Kinship and Community	p. 2
The Race/Class Problem	p. 4
Blood Bias and Family Autonomy Politics	p. 7
Two Stories of a Family at Risk for Child Maltreatment	p. 8
New Directions for the Twenty-First Century?	p. 22
History and Politics
1. The Inherited Tradition: Parenting Rights and State Wrongs	p. 33
Autonomous Families	p. 33
Family Preservation Policies and Practices	p. 38
2. The Politics	p. 44
The Left-Right Coalition: An Unholy Alliance?	p. 44
Lessons From the Battered Women's Movement	p. 50
Politics for the Future	p. 54
The Problem
3. Modern-Day Orphans	p. 59
Abuse and Neglect	p. 61
Substance Abuse: At the Heart of the Problem	p. 67
Foster and Institutional Care	p. 81
The Impact on Children	p. 95
4. Underintervention Vs. Overintervention	p. 98
The Ongoing Tradition
5. Traditional Programs Weather the Storm	p. 113
Family Preservation in Its Infinite Variety	p. 113
Community Preservation: Race Matching and Related Policies	p. 123
6. "New" Programs Promote Traditional Ideas	p. 141
Family Group Decision Making	p. 142
Community Partnerships	p. 146
The New Permanency Movement	p. 154
Promising New Directions and Traditional Pitfalls
7. Intervening Early with Home Visitation	p. 163
The Promise	p. 165
Some Pitfalls	p. 169
8. Taking Adoption Seriously	p. 176
The Promise	p. 176
Promising Initiatives of the Day	p. 186
Some Pitfalls	p. 192
Radical Revolution or Modest Revisionism?	p. 203
Confronting the Challenging Issues
9. Substance Abuse	p. 207
The Problem	p. 207
The Traditional System's Response	p. 208
The Harm to Children	p. 212
The Future: Pitfalls and Promise	p. 217
10. Race, Poverty, and Historic Injustice	p. 233
The Connection with Child Maltreatment	p. 233
Exploitation Stories of the Twentieth Century	p. 235
Outlines of a New Story	p. 238
Notes	p. 245
Index	p. 293
Acknowledgments	p. 303

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